One of the great delights in reviewing aircraft are the ones that come from nowhere and then simply blow you away, the addictive ones, the aircraft that you simply can't shake off and just want to fly them over and over again because they are just that good, and that they are so involving and reinforces the whole complete reason you are in this X-Plane flying simulator thingy in the first place.

One such aircraft was the Embraer EMB 110 Bandeirante or "Bandit" from Dreamfoil Creations and that it is already an odd start in that as developers and then Dreamfoil are more renowned for their helicopters than fixed-wing aircraft, but like a comedian that does a straight role, they are usually better than the developers or the actors that are the fixed-wing or drama specialists in the first place.

In a coincidence, I flew the EMB 110 in its X-Plane10 version only a few weeks ago, and obviously my first thought's were, then this aircraft would be even better in X-Plane11, well I now not need or wait any longer anymore because here it is in it's newly polished X-Plane11 PBR shine, the Embraer EMB 110 Bandeirante XP11.

The original EMB 110 was a very high quality aircraft and was also very feature rich. So in X-Plane11 then those areas have not changed at all, in fact the PBR effects have completely enhanced that quality to a whole new level again, in other words the "bandit" looks excellent.

Dreamfoil are really great developers, and the detail here is simply excellent, these are nice aircraft, realistic and really well put together. So every nut, bolt, rivet, panel, RF antenna, pitot tube, NACA vent, door handle, screw, cable, hydraulic line, brake assembly and every item that makes this airliner is all done here with precision and perfection. The HF Antenna between the upper tail and forward fuselage can be hidden in the menu.

All these areas have been recalibrated for the maximum effect, in quality and with the newer X-Plane11 dynamics, so the MB 110 looks simply amazing. But to note the older liveries now don't work? Which is a shame as I lost my lovely Air New Zealand livery, but the new XP11 paintkit has been posted to redo the liveries for this XP11 version.

Gear detailing is perfection and first rate. Glass also delivers high standards in design and reflections.

One great Dreamfoil feature (on their choppers) was that you could open doors and activate items externally...

With the front passenger door it can still be tricky to see the activation arrows from certain angles on the center of the door? but it is really great to open the aircraft externally.... you open also the large rear cargo door via the separate smaller panel to the right.

Internally the cabin looks different? It is the same, but the colour of the seats have gone from a drab grey to brown leather, and the carpet is now also blue from the same greyness as before, so overall the cabin feels more colourful and it is far better and to the good for that.

Cockpit

The view of the cockpit is in that "I can't believe in how good and realistic this all is" observation... We are used to very high quality cockpits in X-Plane, but this is still one of the very best.

Because of the sheer realism available in this cockpit, you love being in here, in control, enjoying the moment. Every single detail is covered and the levers are worn, tired whatever, and yes those amazing rudder pedals not only work but you can adjust them as well. The seats four armrests are also animated and retract.

Yokes can be hidden, but only the very top yoke handles, so the yoke column still covers some lower panel switchgear.

Instrument Panel

The panel is a lovely clockwork design, very regional in layout and a bit like a KingAir panel. At first glance it can look both easily very complicated and complex. But when you break them down they are usually quite easy to fly and understand. Left to right across the panel, we will start with the pilots station. ﻿

As for the flying instruments placed they are quite basic. The standard six: Altimeter, Speed, Heading Indicator or RMI, V/S (Vertical/Speed) and H﻿orizontal Horizon are all well represented with the ADF and VOR directional points in the heading indicator and a CDI "Course deviation indicator". The rate of turn indicator is also set out below, all these main seven flying instruments are duplicated on the Co-Pilot's panel station. There is a bigger CDI on the far left of the pilot's panel and analog clock at the top. Brake and ﻿pump pressure (PSI) are noted low down. Undercarriage and Flap indicator is central lower and hard to see and use and Cabin Temperature is on the Co-Pilot's lower panel.

The central panel is divided up into sections. Left are the twin sets of engine dials and gauges, from the top is: Engine Temp ºC, Torque(lb-ft), RPM% (﻿Nh), RPM% (Ng), Oil Temp ºC, Oil Pressure PSI and ºC. Top is an extensive and fully working Fire panel with pull handles and test buttons.

Set centre is the biggest change from the earlier XP10 EMB 110... gone are the older (but very authentic) three Collins sets and are now replaced by the more modern avionics as from the top there a Garmin GMA 340 receiver, Garmin GNS 530 and and the smaller Garmin 430 below (All X-Plane native gps units) as these were changed over in the v2.2 update. ATC Transponder, VOR 2 directional radio and AD﻿F radio. In the middle of the stack is a basic but lovely TrimbleNavigation TNL 2100 GPS.

Right centre panel is a Benedix/King WX weather radar set (tube style) which is also a great unit, with an excellent warning annunciator panel below.

The aircraft comes with a full Air Conditioner simulation system that is very effective and usable with the Air-Con panel situated down left of the Co-Pilot on the l﻿ower side panel.

Highlight is the comprehensive fuel panel which is a thing of bea﻿uty all by itself!, gorgeous in design with gauges for fuel flow (top), Fuel Pressure PSI, and usable fuel lbs x 2 below. Main, Aux tank switches and crossfeed. There is a "Foxbaro" fuel used (reset) counter at the top that can reset to zero on startup, so you know﻿ the perfect quantity of fuel consumed...

The pedestal is quite basic, but beautifully crafted. Main twin-levers for throttle, Prop and Condition. Three trim knobs are good and easy to use... but the setting marker on the pitch is very hard to see? I would have put a blob of white paint on it... and also on the central pedestal is the Autopilot (A/P) panel.

The A/P is quite basic in mostly hold modes and a dial for turns and thumb wheel for pitch. In the earlier version it was very difficult to use the autopilot because of it's buried position... in this XP11 version you now have a pop-up A/P panel (hooray!) that is activated by pressing the autopilot FD/AP repeater panel (action lights).

A common mistake is that users think that the A/P doesn't work... but you have to first switch it on (arrowed) before you can use the autopilot panel (it lights up when activated).

Overhead Panel (OHP) is quite complicated, it covers the electrical buses, aircraft lighting (Internal/external), wipers and engine start switches. You really have to study it to fully understand the bus flows and the way it is laid out for use.

The "Deicing" panel is high right above the Co-Pilot on the roof, and you have all the full deicing options for the propellers, windshield, engine inlets and all wing pneumatic wing boots. Again very complex and well done, but requires study... a lovely AMP gauge is the highlight of the panel.

So the cockpit looks and is complex, but it is in reality quite easy to use, the main point is the﻿﻿﻿way you interact with the aircraft, and that is in a wonderful way. Switches are big, functional and the all the switch lighting is also large (usually green) and they all glow beautifully in the faded light or dark.... this EMB 110 is a great place to be in. ﻿

Menu

Anyone﻿ who has flown any of Dreamfoil's other aircraft will be very familiar with this circular dis﻿c selection system called Smartmenu.

On the XP10 version the Smartmenu was activated by pressing on the centre of the glareshield, but it has now been moved to the panel warning sticker next to the FD/AP repeater panel (arrowed), and that it is a far better place to access it.

Items available in the menu when going counterclockwise and from the top is first the "SmartLivery" selection. Here you can rotate through all the liveries and easily select the one you require, and the livery is shown in the centre of the disk... Next is the set Views that includes positions of the: Pilot, Co-Pilot, Console, Overhead, Passengers, PostCam, Passenger 1, Passenger 2, Baggage Compartment and Tail Cam... all are excellen﻿t.

Volume... the aircraft comes with Dreamfoil's excellent sound DreamEngine which includes over +50 sounds, Doppler Effect and Atmospheric Attenuation, realistic turboprop sounds with real-time propeller dynamic and relative sustain effect for startup and shutdown. You can adjust the volumes here on the menu disk to your specific liking. FOV allows you to change the "Field of View"...

... and the Checklist is excellent, it is very well done and you can move the pop-up binder around the screen and also scale the binder to fit smaller spaces. Stability allows you to change the percentages % of Yaw, Roll and pitch to your liking. You can customise changes in three items; Tail-Plane (change to 10º dihedral), HF_Antenna and activate (system) Failures.

Exterior; This menu item can be accessed both on the internal menu and externally by pressing the circle on the nose of the aircraft.

Your GPU (external power) can be selected here (You can also use the lower point on the battery switch on the "Overhead" panel), the GPU has changed colour as well from yellow to white, personally I preferred the yellow version.

One other selection item is for loading the fuel... you press a pump handle on each wing centre cap to bring up a % dial of the amount of fuel in each wing tank, and you can then adjust the fuel amounts to your liking.

Flying the EMB 110 XP11

Start up is Beacon and Nav lights on, fuel pumps on... and I have set 2,139.50lbs of fuel on board to make the distance to Cork (EICK) from EIDW (Dublin) Ireland. On the OHP I set the AC BUS Bar switches on, Inertial Separation switches to on (condition levers to up) and to start is a simple switch up of the "Start" switch.

The turbo-whine starts up outside of one of the Pratt & Whitney PT6A-34 turboprop engines (Same as in the King Airs, PC12 and Twin-Otters) and each engine gives you 783 eshp and 750 shp. Throw another switch and you get another whine from the second engine and the start-up procedure is fully automatic.

The Ng RPM will settle down at idle around 52%, and the excellent as mentioned DreamEngine sounds will give you the full voice from whine startup to idle revolution power. If you are connected up to a good sound system (like I am with a bose) then be fully prepared to feel all that turbo power that raises all the hairs on the back of your neck. It is simply great stuff.

Once the engines are running you can then switch down both "Start" switches to "Interruption" and turn on both G1 and G2 engine generators, Then close down the external GPU...

As expected the performance dynamics of X-Plane11 and they are all very different from the original, once you have idled the engines you need to pull back on the mixture (once the engines have warmed up) for a more leaner idle to taxi. Wipers are on, and as it is raining hard in Dublin the "thunk, thuck" to each side of the window is created with a great realism... I noticed the panel lighting is a lot, lot less brighter than on the earlier versions, and it makes the panel look quite blander, you would think that XP11 lighting would be better here and not worse?

Flaps 25%, brakes off and throttle up... The Bandeirante will track the runway very well, but when you lift off around 135knts with that 1500shp power pulling you upwards but with the thrust going slightly sideways the aircraft will very quickly roll right, if you are not prepared for that slip to the right you are very quickly going off the departing runway centre line.

So you are working the rudder and yoke to keep the aircraft in a nice straight line while holding a 5º-7º pitch. The first time the slip will easily catch you out but after a few runs to adjust to it and love the feel of this lively machine in your hands. Rolling to a new heading needs a firm hand but it is easier than you think it would be, and you need flaps quickly up (or 0º) before you are out of the slow (white zone) at 148knts. Speed is then set at 91% Nh. Climb at fpm is around 1000ft and official Rate of Climb is noted around 8.3 m/s (1,640 ft/min), but I found the 1000fpm setting was a better feel and climb without losing power and speed.

One thing that threw me was that the undercarriage didn't retract on my Saitek switch command (set to the X-Plane key settings), this gear has a manual gear drop feature which is very clever via a red lever, but it also cancels out the native command as well, you can then only raise and lower the gear via the panel switch...

The Embraer certainly feels different from the earlier versions, and certainly more to my liking as it feels more complete and refined. I broke though to low cast heavy cloud cover at around 3000ft, and felt freeee...

If you don't want unwarranted issues then make sure you turn off the "Failures" on the menu, I had a "Fire" in my left engine because I held the power up too high on a takeoff and a "Landing gear" failure, all very exciting and authentic if you like your flying that way, but I just want to fly today.

One area I was keen to check out in this new version was the heading change and a hard bank... In the original aircraft my impressions﻿ of the Bandeirante w﻿ere not that great ﻿in t﻿he tu﻿rn or the bank, as I found the a﻿ircraft just badly pitch﻿ed up and down and sometimes as much as a thousand ft per minute and in some cases as it did the banking manoeuvre, and it was all quite hard to control and cancel out this heavy wave effect...

... after a few rolls under both the A/P and manually rolling under the stick and rudder, I can confirm that this nasty issue thankfully has now gone away, in fact the aircraft is really lovely under any change of heading, but you have to keep the inputs quite smooth and small as the aircraft is still quite delicate under the stick, but it is now far, far better to fly, and so that is a big plus to X-Plane11 dynamics there.

It is a hell of a nice place to be in up here...

... the cockpit uses the X-Plane PBR effects to the limit, it is highly realistic and livable. The only thing I noticed was that it was easy to confuse the A/P pop-up panel for the Menu pop-up, or you got even both if you got confused by the selection zones as they are located quite close together.

I found earlier approaches very tricky in the X-Plane10 version, it was hard to keep lift and fly at the same time with a very tight speed zone between them, so here I go again in the X-Plane11 version and was expecting the worst. Note the inverted nose illusion effect has been fixed as well.

But the early approach signs were very good. I found that I could find a nice balance of speed around 120knts and with the flaps set at 60º and you could fly as steady as a rock here... all day.

Flaps down to FULL or 100º and no sudden lift or painful loss of height... very nice, and with the speed slowing now to around 105knts it is again about perfect.

Flap and undercarriage design and animation is excellent, great detail and beautifully created. The main gear track is quite wide so you have to make sure your landings are quite level, or if not the aircraft will bounce on one wheel (tip the wing up) and then bounce to the other before both wheels settle down.

Mighty, mighty impressed, this is far better than before... over the fence.

A nice little flare at around 100knts as stall speed is around 87 knots, and you do a perfect landing, but again be sure to be perfectly level as the rear wheels touch.

In the earlier version there was some confusion in using the "beta" mode of the throttle, currently the setting "hold thrust reverse at max" which I have set on my joystick trigger works fine to reverse the props, but the aircraft became a little bit of a handful under the beta reverse mode, a Laminar ground effect issue or an aircraft issue, but I may have to practise that more in the future but I would blame the former.

Cork, and that was certainly a very different feel and difference between the old and new versions on slow approaches, I was actually very impressed and the newer X-Plane dynamics have done simply wonders to the aircraft, as the EMB 110 feels very different and certainly it is far more flyable.

Lighting

Overall the lighting is excellent, as noted the panel feels far more dimmer than before.

Cockpit lighting is controlled by four rotary dials, three on the pilot's side and one on the Co-Pilot's. It is excellent at night, fully adjustable and you can turn off the overhead lighting on the OHP. So no doubt the EMB 110 is a very nice place to work in. There are map reading lights each side, but they still don't work?

The rotary dials cover both flying instrument lighting, Overhead Panel and the Avionics, and other switches cover the main cockpit lighting and rear cabin lighting with three settings of: OFF - MEDIUM - OVERALL or half lighting or full cabin lighting. There are some EXIT signs but I couldn't get them to work, which is a shame.

External lighting is again excellent... with Navigation, to﻿p and bottom B﻿eacons, strobes and tail light﻿. All lighting including the strobes reflect on the ground and are about perfect. There is a Landing light in each wing and a single taxi light positioned on the front gear strut.

Other lighting features are gear well lights, great ice/wing lights and when the door is open an overhead entrance light.

Liveries

There is one blank/white livery and four brand liveries that all strangely don't have any registration numbers?

Quality is however very high, and come with 4k textures and detailing.

Summary

First point to make here is the price? Which is US$29.95... that is simply a crazy price for an aircraft like this, nuts!, this is worth US$35 minimum for the quality, detailing and the huge amount of features you get with this aircraft and this certainly a highly immersive aircraft that is easily in high Carenado price territory, better still if you already have the earlier X-Plane10 version you can also upgrade to this new exceptional X-Plane11 release for only $19.95.

Dreamfoil Creations were always one of the very best developers for X-Plane, as noted mostly for their exceptional helicopters, but their only fixed-wing aircraft (to date) is this Embraer EMB 110 Bandeirante. But their same exceptional quality is here for you as well and that includes all the usual Dreamfoil Creations features in clever menus, brilliant sounds, loads of features and pretty well almost everything that includes the kitchen sink as well... almost.

The upgrade also fixes up all of of the small issues that came with the original aircraft, and they are mostly in the flying dynamics, in banking and slow speed lift and feel. In fact it is about perfect in all areas now and simply a great aircraft to fly. The hard to get to and use autopilot now has a pop-up and scaling panel as well, which had been another if slight annoyance... but a few things have also gone slightly backwards. The indirect panel lighting is not as effective as before and it is far more dimmer which takes a lot of the wow factor out of the instrument panel, Undercarriage does not work via key input and the yokes only semi-disappear. There are still some missing lighting items like the side spots and EXIT signs, but all these are mere niggles compared to what you get overall.

So overall it is again that sensational price, and everything noted above in this review is what you get for your money... but above all else this Bandeirante is an excellent aircraft and delivers on every single level in what you would expect as one of the best small regional twin-props you can get today and now the aircraft is also available in a X-Plane11 cofiguration and uses the dynamics and features of X-Plane11 very well as well, so what more could you really wish for... Highly recommended.

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Awesome review as always, and is most appreciated. I really have nothing more to add other than to say it is a good airplane and I've been having a love hate relationship with it. Mainly me learning how not to burn up the engines. I intended to use the aircraft for flight-jobs.net and eventually FS economy. But I have to say the fuel to payload ratio is difficult to make money with the aircraft. Hopefully developer in time will add some additional content to the aircraft by way of having a cargo only interior, would be nice as an example. Take advantage of that big cargo door in the back. Overall I'm in agreement with you that the airplane is very good and I recommend it to anybody who wants to fly a low wing turboprop. Cheers Dion

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I loved the original version but I don't know why I don't fly it more often... so the question is do I have to upgrade it ? I guess yes if I read all your comments about enhancements...

Yes and yes... odd isn't it that most users don't fly it that often, including myself. It will be interesting with the far better X-Plane11 improvements on performance if that changes anything, it is a far different aircraft in that respect than it was before. SD